Best Friends Forever - Irene S. Levine [87]
“I’m very cautious about introducing my new boyfriend to my friends,” says another woman. “I’m reluctant to share my feelings about my boyfriend if my girlfriend doesn’t have a significant other.” Yet these women are a minority. For most women, the take-away message is that many male-female relationships—and even marriages—don’t last forever either (and even when they do, aren’t always totally fulfilling). Thus, women need to realize the significance of maintaining intimate relationships with female friend regardless of their relationships with men. “I will never again push my friends aside for a guy,” says one woman.
Women can talk to each other about hopes and dreams that most men can never understand. “I have many childhood friendships that have lasted for years and a guy I know for two weeks shouldn’t come between that,” says another. If your boyfriend is unable to tolerate and get along with your female friends, that should raise a red flag of its own.
A caveat: taken to an extreme, some woman don’t recognize that one of the reasons why they are making unrealistic demands of their female friends is because they are sublimating their needs for romantic companionship. “It made me realize that I wasn’t exploring my need for male relationships, and instead was living with unrequited feelings that were destructive to my friendships,” says one such woman.
CHOOSE FRIENDS WISELY
Making meaningful and satisfying friendships requires wisdom and experience. From loss often comes a better knowledge of what we are attracted to and what we need to stay away from. The lost friendship becomes a marker by which women can compare and judge subsequent friendships. It reminds us to be selective and alerts us to red flags when they appear.
“I don’t like to make friends with women that are very close-minded, because that’s how I view the followers of the religion that I left,” says one. Another says that she stays clear of women who play the “victim role.” Even the experience of having a relationship with someone who is habitually late can make the individual seek out someone who is habitually on time. Another woman recognized that there wasn’t any room on her dance card for relationships that were relegated to “phone and text” only. She was interested in building friendships with women who could give her “face time.” Another made the conscious decision to seek out friends “who are positive and upbeat.” Yet another sought out “people who are physically active with a passion for at least one thing in life.”
Because friendship comes in so many flavors, you need to be open to people who don’t immediately fit your stereotype of someone who looks best-friend-worthy. “I’ve learned that you should not judge people or choose your friends only based on commonalities,” says one woman. “You should learn to allow differences and love people for who they are.”
Many women feel that they regretted becoming enablers for friends who abused drugs or alcohol or got into trouble with the law—and refused to accept help. For them, these situations eventually became friendship killers so they became increasingly cautious about making the same mistakes. “I decided to rethink the people I hang around with and what kind of influence they would have on me. One bad night with my friend who was an abuser scarred me for life,” she says.
One woman described her close friend as extremely controlling. Apparently, both felt comfortable with the relationship until the submissive one “attained more balance in her life” and became more secure and assertive. When that happened, her friend’s efforts to control their relationship turned into seething anger that destroyed it.
Unfortunately, you can’t hope to redesign a friend or radically change her personality. When it comes to people, women or men, character endures. “It’s like that old saying about choosing a boyfriend based on how he treats a waiter in a restaurant,” says one woman. “I saw how this person treated other friends—many times, she slept with someone a friend was involved with or interested in